A coffee maker such as described in U.S. D448602S constitutes both a coffee maker and a coffee pot in one device. However this kind of coffee maker requires cleaning after use and is not well-suited for one-time-use. The equipment is too expensive and is per se not suitable for disposal.
An example of a device for one-time-use related to the making of coffee is U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,674 disclosing a beverage making cartridge made of an air- and water-impermeable material and containing a product, which provides a beverage such as soup, chocolate and coffee when mixed in aqueous medium. A web material is located in the sachet below the product. When using the sachet, pressurized liquid is introduced from the top of the sachet, into the sachet and through the sachet and the web material, whereby the bottom of the sachet is opened. The sachet may eventually be provided with a nozzle in the top of the sachet. A drawback of this invention is that pressurized liquid is required in order to utilize the device and dedicated equipment is needed for using it. Thus, a handheld-based brewing of coffee is not applicable.
One problem is to be able to make coffee of good and uniform quality without a machine or a coffee pot or a conventional coffee filter and funnel. This problem has at least partly been dealt with in U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,408, which describes a solution in which a package contains a filter and a foldable funnel suited for arbitrary drinking cups. The illustrated solution suffers from the drawback that it is expensive to manufacture as the foldable funnel frame forms a body separate from the outer bag, thereby complicating the manufacturing process.
One of several problems addressed by the invention is a reduction in manufacturing costs, both with respect to the manufacturing process and with respect to consumption of materials needed for the device.
Another problem addressed by the invention is to avoid necessity of specialized brewing equipment.